Self-love is a reality you are designed to know and experience in your body, heart, soul, and mind.

Self-love includes valuing our bodies as they are today — these changing containers we’ve been given for our true selves.

Self-love is the connection with our whole being, experienced or felt in various ways on different days. It’s akin to our invisible fascia, the connecting tissue holding us together. Like fascia, self-love encloses and stabilizes us. But even more, it holds and warms us through all our toughest moments.

Our thoughts question, even doubt, our self-love. So when we are able to experience it, the awareness comes through our senses, bodies and hearts, emanating from our essence or soul. We don’t have to convince our minds of self-love, in fact, when we’re “out of our minds” it’s easier to experience it.

When we truly have begun to love ourselves, we value our bodies…as they are right now. Not how they could be. Not how they used to be. Our bodies change monthly, yearly. Self-love is the unconditional grace that embraces those changes, without criticism. If you find yourself putting yourself down, try seeing yourself as your dearest friend or treasured family member. Notice what harsh things you’re saying to yourself, then backspace and delete them. Say things to yourself that are unconditionally kind. But these words are not just affirmations; cognitive reframes aren’t enough. Embody the truth of the absolute love that is your very nature.

Self-love is much deeper than enjoying our successes or talents.

Society teaches us that self-love is something it’s not, and we fall for it. We get hung up on believing that we are what we do, or how we look, or how we act. Those are expressions of ourselves, but are not our true selves. Self-love is remembering our beingness, then personifying who we truly are and living that incarnation. Self-love is not an affirmation or an intention. It’s not a merely a commitment to love ourselves. It is epitomizing and exemplifying the innate love we were born with, for ourselves. It’s brave, then, to counter our culture, going against the societal grain, remembering who we truly are; it’s brave to experience this deep love for ourselves.

Self-love is connected to something greater — to God, nature, or the universe, a constant unconditional emanation of the highest love accessible.

Self-love is more than a well within us; it is sourced. We don’t have to work hard to conjure it, because we’re already tapped in. It’s not our own personal stream, it’s part of the entire ocean. Self-love is the reality of the union that our whole being has with not only all of our parts, but with bountiful links to everything: other people, nature, planets, and the infinite universe. We are vibrating in connected, unconditional, aware rhythm with the very source of all love.

When we are truly full of self-love we are not egoic or falsely built-up. We’re simply exuding our beingness, our beautiful, worthy, powerful, creative nature. We are present with all of who we are, and self-love pulsates with this presence.

Immersed in this connection, our self-love doesn’t go away, even if we’re are upset. No devastation can remove or detract from the profound oneness we have with our whole being, and this intricate overarching love. It may feel lost, at times, needing to be found. Our minds are the trouble, though: thoughts question our worthiness, our appearance, our behavior, our lovability, our capability, and our personalities. Yet when we tap back into our essence, our inner home, we dip our feet into the ever-present love that keeps us alive.

Self-love is our lifeblood — it is our ultimate vitality, the source of our strength, bravery, tenderness, creativity, kindness, nurturing, empowerment, leadership, and everything good in us.

Emerging from this gigantic container of love within us and with love from God endowed to us and for each other, we can more freely and easily exude compassion and care for other beings. Immersed in self-love, we vibe with our inner Essence and that of others. We can become and reveal all of what we’re meant to be and do, truly manifesting our destiny moment to moment and day to day. Alive and awake, living from love, returning to love, we operate from creativity, offer service, are efficient, wiser, and more compassionate. Because self-love is part of our innate goodness.

Self-love is your inner bonfire, and love for others is the warmth coming from it.

Can you ask yourself now: do I love myself? Do I feel and experience this love for myself? Perhaps you feel more love for others than for you do for you. How about this: boomerang a huge, warm blast of loving grace out from your deepest core, then right-back-atcha. Send it into and around yourself, feeling it’s blazing, empowering heat. How? You don’t need to affirm it, or envision it, unless words or imagination help. All you have to do is gracefully, mindfully step into this love, because it’s already there, within you and surrounding you. Choose to commit to the daily practice of loving yourself, embodying it throughout your entire being. Visualize it as your inner bonfire, with its shared warmth extending to others around you. It is energy, and you are a force. Ignited and aflame, it makes you your best self.